Omagh bomb victim’s father says inquiry stress contributed to stroke

A man whose son was killed in the Omagh bombing has suffered a stroke he believes was brought on by ongoing stress from the inquiry into the atrocity.

Michael Gallagher said he feels “some sense of ownership” of the process investigating the death of his child who was amongst those killed in the 1998 dissident republican car bomb attack.

Aiden, a 21-year-old mechanic, was one of 29 people who lost their lives when the vehicle exploded in the centre of the Co Tyrone town on a busy Saturday afternoon.

Mr Gallagher became a figurehead for many of those impacted by the Omagh bombing after he chaired a group set up to help grieving families.

The long-awaited inquiry into whether the attack could have been prevented by state authorities was formally established in February 2024 and is currently sitting in Belfast.

Mr Gallagher said it has been a “long hard slog” as he and his wife travelled from their home in Omagh, staying in Belfast for some time each week to attend the inquiry daily.

He said he began to experience symptoms of a stroke while watching proceedings at the inquiry about three weeks ago, before driving back to Omagh when his daughter took him to hospital in Enniskillen.

“The doctor then came up to the ward and showed me the picture of the brain, and showed me where the damage was done, and it was just a complete and absolute shock,” he told the Press Association.

“But I felt when I was in the inquiry, all that information coming at you, I just felt that I was taking a nervous breakdown, and it was just important to get away from that.

“But I think it’s just an accumulation of 28 years of dealing with these issues, because a lot of the information I was getting I already knew, and knew actually more, you do get a few bits that you didn’t know.

“But I spent Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night (in hospital) and I got out on the Monday evening, and my daughter and my wife came up and collected me, and we went straight to Belfast and back into the hotel that we were in, and then back to the inquiry on Tuesday, so it was it was pretty intense.”

He said he has “absolutely no doubt” the pressure of the inquiry contributed to the timing of his stroke.

“The doctor said that stress is part of the thing that brings on a stroke, and I knew that,” he said.

Mr Gallagher described his thought process as he was watching people in the stroke ward “leaving in wheelchairs”.

“I thought, if it’s God’s will, I will walk out of there, and that’s exactly what I did do,” he said.

“So, it’s difficult, but under the circumstances you’ve got to try and keep positive.”

Despite his health difficulties, he has continued to attend the inquiry saying he has put his “life on hold for almost 30 years” to get answers for his son.

“It’s not that I don’t trust anybody, it’s just the fact that over that long period I built up a considerable knowledge, and I was right at the centre of all of that,” he said.

He added: “I felt that I had in some sense ownership of this process, and I wanted to keep an eye on and make sure that if I could do anything that would keep pushing it forward.

“That was just how I felt, wrongly or rightly, now everybody around me was saying, ‘you should take a rest, you shouldn’t do this’ that’s easier said than done.

“I think when you’ve got a commitment to it, that’s exactly what you want to do.”

The long-time campaigner said the families of the victims of the Omagh bomb should have been granted the inquiry “years ago”.

“We shouldn’t have really had to put our lives on hold for X number of years until we got the inquiry,” he said.

“But I think you can start to think that way, and that will only upset you and you know make life more difficult.

“But I think I’ve got to take a positive attitude and look at the fact that we have all those years since it happened, and it’s benefitted in the fact that we’ve learned more.

“There is more information out there than would have been if we had had this inquiry, say even 10 years ago, so there’s plus and minuses in all of this process.

“The point is (former Northern Ireland Secretary) Chris Heaton Harris granted us this inquiry, and you know I still wake up at night and think, did we really get this inquiry?

“And because of that, I think we’ve got to work at it, and we’ve got to encourage people who have any information or knowledge or documentation to come forward and assist the inquiry in the important work that is doing.”